By Ortega Ian
Juliana is one of the Ugandan musicians that I sincerely have a soft spot for. Of course she was my first crush in the music industry. That was way back when I was some young chap in Secondary. I was there fantasizing about Juliana.
Time forward, we became super friends. You know BigEyeug would go write a story that cast Juliana in a negative light but Juliana would always warm up to a message or a call from me. She didn’t let what we wrote create walls between us.
Most touching was the day her son died. We had been chatting a few hours before as she was asking me to keep praying. Then she went off for some time, then the news begun that the little Angel had died. I send her a message asking her to confirm, she quickly replies and tells me the unfortunate news. I give my words of comfort then rush to write a story. Now that was beyond possible, for someone to give you their time in their hardest moment. That was unchallenged.
I have interviewed upcoming artistes. You send them interview questions. They take years to reply. Yes, years. And when they reply, it’s the fakest of answers.
Trust me, the deepest interview you can ever do is with Juliana. No Ugandan musician is so honest and so much willing to be vulnerable. And if it’s an email interview, the latest she can take is two days before she replies in the best of grammar, she has that midas touch to everything she does.
And you know, you listen to her perform, you’re gonna get hypnotized by her. You will fall in a trance, there is magic about her, about her music. It is music that never fades. Ten years back, her songs would still have made sense, ten years into the future, they will still deliver that magic.
I don’t know how she does what she does. Even if you were to try to hate Juliana, she would feed you with more love. She is worthy of being called a musical saint, perhaps the goddess of the Ugandan music industry. Her good character is not pretence or for PR, that’s her. In and out, that’s her. You may be the journalist that bashed her an hour ago, and 30 minutes later you ask her for an interview and she will gladly say Yes. Great woman. She disarms her enemies by making them her friends.